© TEXTS-IMAGES-VIDEOS
THE LAST ACTIONS OF PASTOR IN ROME, 2007
Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship based in American Academy in Rome.
All the actions were created between September 10 and December 10, 2007. At that time I received a grant from the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship based in American Academy in Rome. In the course of those three lucrative months I conducted numerous actions, took interviews and a few thousand photos. Rome is the greatest suite of humankind. This city has been breathing and living life to the full for already about three thousand years. It constantly brings surprises and lets one inhale all the colours of time, culture and household. Rome, the first city of all cities (it might be compared only to Jerusalem) made me re-estimate to a great extent the work I had done, and provoked constant thoughts like: what have I actually been doing all these years? That was Rome which reminded me of the artist’s great service (I apologize for this conventional pathetics). I didn’t only want to understand and embrace the city with a single glance – I wished to sweep it, touch its stairs, corners, ruins, masterpieces. I penetrated time, ideology and art using tactual sensations. I turned into an urban maniac obsessed with touching everything: I was embracing and kissing stones almost ruined by the time, just like many other crazy individuals did centuries ago. I took over their madness that bridged temporal and perceptual gaps.
As a “pastor” I was attracted by ideology and its attributes. These are for instance confessionals, their construction, architecture, decorative components, history of their evolution. I photographed dozens of confessionals, sometimes touching metal plates (with a tiny piece of plasticine in my hand), the most important thing – material border between God and man, created by Western way of thinking. I needed to experience that border physically, make a replica of such a rarity. Imprint verbal tone of confessions of thousands of people in the slowly firming pulp in my hand.
“1 WORK –100 INTERPRETATIONS”, 2007
Video Documentation of Action
Concept by Vadim Zakharov
Realisation: Vadim Zakharov and Michael Grimaldi
Photos and videos by: Liz Grimaldi, Maria Prudominskaya, Vadim Zakharov
“Touching the Sacred”, 2007
Photos: Vadim Zakharov
• THE VATICAN AND S.PETER'S BASILICA • KEYHOLE IN THE LOCKED GATES OF THE CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF THE PRIORY • LA BOCCA DELLA VERITÀ • ARCHBASILICA OF SAINT JOHN IN LATERAN • BASILICA DI S.MARIA IN COSMEDIN • BASILICA DI S.GIOVANNI IN LATERANO • BASILICA DI S.CROCE IN GERUSALEMME • CHIESA DI S.MARIA DI ARACOELI • S.BARTOLOMEO ALL ISOLE • CHIESA DI S.MARCELLO AL CORSO • BASILICA DI S.PAOLO FUORI LE MURA • CHIESA DI S.IGNAZIO DI LOYOLA • PARROCCIA S.MARIA IN VALLICELLA • CHIESA DI S.MARIA DELLA VITTORIA • CHIESA DI S.IVO ALLA SAPIENZA • CHIESE S.BIAGIO • BASILICA DI S.SABINA • CHIESA DI S.STANISLAO DEI POLACCHI • BASILICA DI S.AGOSTINO IN CAMPO MARZIO • BASILICA DEI SANTI GIOVANNI E PAOLO
“The pastor’s last action – leaving pastor’s cassock in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome”, 2007
Photos: Vadim Zakharov